Dreams of Reality
by Entwife Incognito
Summary: Inspired by 707 Little Yellow House. Not exactly a tag because the episode needed nothing more, for me. But a conversation came to mind ... One-shot. Pretty fluffy. I don't even think it's 'T.' Disclaimer: I own nothing about The Mentalist.


Too busy enjoying himself with her family, Jane hadn't seen the ideas fizzing in Teresa's head at the picnic for baby Paul's christening. Things had gone well, settled with Teresa, and a certain bubbly cheer filled the new spaces. What a great feeling, that her happiness seemed to be about him! He was just glad to help those she loved because he loved Teresa. Her family were people he could love and enjoy, embedded in such a warm group, full of life. A life he could have a special place in, if he and Teresa chose.

And then she'd told him she loved him. Those three little words of worthy legend. Sprung from her sweet heart like the arrow from Cupid's bow. And then giggled that she'd said it. Swift, surprising and disabling him with joy. Especially in the nights since, that they spent languishing in spent passion.

They lounged under the Airstream awning together, as they did many an evening now. Teresa had launched the topic of plans after law enforcement. For all she denied wanting that change, her need to discuss it surfaced at least once every few days. She wanted it, all right. And she knew what she wanted them to plan. She just didn't want to say. In a way, he couldn't blame her, all the wild ideas he'd pelted her with. His whole reason for starting the conversation in the first place was to flush her out. Find out what she really wanted so that he could begin to give it to her.

"Stop! You're not being serious!"

"I am so. What's wrong with buying a sea-worthy yacht and traveling by water wherever we want to go? We'll hire a captain and a mate to do it for us."

"I told you. I get seasick. I'd be miserable."

"Only for a little while. You'd get your sea legs in no time."

"But just sail around and be lazy for the rest of our lives? Come on. And, where would we get the money?"

"That's the last of our worries. Believe me, Teresa. We will never want for money."

"Now you're being mysterious. Sounds like ill-gotten gain. Illegal, even."

There was no zippy comeback.

"Jane?"

"What?"

"Is it illegal?"

"No. It's just safely hidden."

"Safely hidden . . . illegally?"

"No!" He looked at her from the corner of his eyes. "And that's my business, anyway."

"Not if you want to take _me_ around the world."

"Well, I don't."

Petulant.

"At least not now."

"Then why bring it up? You make it sound like you want us to take off right away."

"Soon. But we'd need to prepare."

"Well, of course. But it all sounds like a big whup vacation to me. Not a life."

"You'd take it as a vacation then, at least?"

"Yes, I suppose I would. If it made you that happy. If you had your heart set on it. I think you're right about getting my sea legs. And anyway, there's medication for it."

"All right, then." Honeymoon.

"So. That's not a life."

"I'm tired of coming up with all the ideas. Don't you have any?" His bottom lip pushed out in a pout. "And none of them had better involve a badge or a gun. Maybe that's how it will end up, but this is out of the box time, Teresa."

"From my viewpoint, it's you who stays in your own box, Patrick. It's just different than mine."

Jane stifled a smile.

"Okay. Out of my box." She pulled another beer from the ice chest between them. There was a long pause. "I can't think of anything."

"Fishing?"

"What? No, you idiot." Laughing, she took a sip of beer and almost choked. "Worms? Fish guts? No, thanks."

"What if I cleaned them for you . . . and baited the hook?"

"What are we? Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer? You gonna build a raft to float the Brazos? Stop. Let me think."

The Brazos. Did she want to live in the hill country around Austin?

"Okay. Don't hold me to this. It's just the first thing I thought of." She looked at his amused face. "I mean it. Don't laugh." Big swig on her beer and a deep breath. "Live in the country. Have a garden. Make jam and pickles-"

She narrowed her eyes when his guffaw was so strong he had to bend over. "You? Make pickles and jam?"

"I could learn." Tilting her head back, she opened her mouth in a smile that showed all her teeth.

He loved that smile. He nodded and gestured for her to continue.

"Have a big dog. A few cats around to keep down the varmints. Some chickens. Fruit trees."

"You're going to gather eggs and butcher chickens for Sunday dinner?" He leaned closer to her chair. "'Varmints?'"

"Isn't that what they call them?"

"Well, in the country you could keep some guns. That ought to make you happy. You could shoot the varmints. "

"But cats will be easier for the rats and mice and snakes. Oh. And I'll always have guns. Wherever I am. Maybe a little .410 Snakecharmer shotgun to carry around the place. A couple of nice 12-gauges for the front and back doors.

"Oh my god, I'm in love with Annie Oakley. Will you have a pair of six-guns on your hips?" He paused, contemplating this. "Oh, please do. I'd love to see them sway with your ass, maybe strip them off you when you make me hot in your arms . . ."

"Stop. You know I won't give up my guns."

"Stipulated. Lisbon. Honey . . ." He reached to take her hand. "Don't you want to maybe get a private plane and jet around the world? Take a beautiful penthouse in New York? Go on safari in Africa? Live in a seaside villa in Italy? I don't know. Something . . . bigger?"

"Like I said. Those things sound like good long vacations. We can do that, off and on. But if we're talking about an actual life . . . no. I want a home, Patrick. And what's more, you do, too."

"Oh, I do?"

"Yes. I know you do. Don't pretend. You envied me. Remember?"

"We'll get to what I want, later."

"I thought you've been trying to tell me that, with all your outlandish talk."

Patrick cleared his throat. "Okay. Where would this home be?"

"Somewhere warm. So I could wear pretty sundresses and go barefoot around the place, tend my flowers."

"Who _are _you? And what did you do with my Teresa? Next, you'll be telling me you want me to keep your belly big over those bare feet." Now they were getting to it. Imagining her big with their children unleashed a familiar, deep rush of joy.

Both of them looked straight ahead, holding their breaths, beers idle in their hands. Teresa turned bright red and Patrick's lips parted, sensing a chasm opening at his feet.

She spoke very quietly. "Would that be so bad?"

"You want children."

She turned to him. "Does that surprise you?"

"No." He turned to meet her gaze. "Not at all."

"Do you want children again, Patrick? I know you love being around them, playing with them, picking up babies. You light up when you're around kids. Did you know that? Always have. All your cares seem to drop away."

"I don't know what to say. That's a serious conversation."

"Aren't we having a serious conversation?"

"The most serious . . . just now."

"You don't have to say . . . or even talk about it if you're not ready. We can just play around with wild ideas of what to do with our lives. But that question seems rather critical. That we be in agreement, I mean."

Just step off that high dive, Patrick. He took a quiet calming breath but it didn't stop the pounding in his heart. "Talking's fine . . ." He was afraid she'd consider his feelings an ultimatum.

She thought she understood his caution, but couldn't help the hot little thread of dismay that settled in her belly. "Okay. Uh. All your ideas have us on the move. How serious are you about that?"

"If you were with me, I'd love it."

"How disappointed would you be if I said no? Would it ruin your life? I couldn't be happy if you're not happy."

"Same with me." He blew air through his pursed lips. "Will you come and sit in my lap? You're too far away for this conversation and it's dark."

"You just want more information from my body as we talk." But she walked over to him. "Make me some room. I have nothing to hide from the man I love."

He adjusted his body to cradle her and she squirmed into place like she always did. God, she felt good. Made him feel like a whole person. A whole, _loved_ person. She'd told him so at the picnic, just like that. And she'd been repeating it ever since. He guessed she wanted to make sure it sank in. But mainly, the pleasure it gave her was obvious. Everything in him settled like earth after new rain. "I have to make a confession. I just made up all those wild ideas. I don't want to do any of them."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know you. Especially now."

"Oh?"

"All those things made you happy, excited . . . because it was fun to think of anything new and different." She nuzzled his cheek. "And you wanted to impress me, you sweet thing."

No, darling. Not quite it. "How would that impress you?"

"Oh . . . that the sky's the limit. That you could take me away from . . . all this . . . danger. I know we're afraid."

"I didn't think _you_ were."

"I didn't used to be. But now that we're together . . . I feel . . . different. I didn't think I would. I have so much to lose . . . if I lost you. I try to imagine it, but it's too horrible. I don't think I could recover."

He'd be the last person to try and convince her otherwise. "You know I couldn't. I'd be dead in a year."

"I know." She put her face near his ear and hugged his neck tightly while he squeezed the rest of her, reassuring himself of her reality right there in his arms. "That's the new part. The part I didn't expect about being with you. What I would do to you if I died and left you behind. What you would do to me if you were the one to die. It's not just you, and it's not just me anymore. And if anyone has a justifiable fear of losing the one you love, well, it's you. That's in you for a good reason and it won't go away. I don't want you to feel frightened for the rest of my life."

"Should we make decisions out of my fear?"

"_Our_ fears. Damn right we should. If the danger is real, the fear is healthy. Maybe it shouldn't be overcome. Maybe it should be listened to. I try to minimize and not think about it. That's just what cops do. But all of a sudden, I'm more than a cop. I'm part of you."

"Teresa . . . Thank you for understanding me." He nuzzled her neck until his face felt hot.

"So. I believe you now. Number One has to be a life outside of law enforcement. Besides . . . it doesn't fit in very well . . . with other plans I might like to make . . . if you want them, too."

"I'd better finish my confession."

Looking into his eyes, she took his hand and played with his long fingers, waiting for him to speak.

"I proposed those wild things because I wanted to force you to think of a life outside the law enforcement box. That it was possible. And then, see what made you light up."

"Oh. You were manipulating me. Instead of talking to me." She'd discovered there could be rare good reasons for Patrick to keep secrets from her. Maybe there were rare good reasons for him to manipulate her? She doubted it. "Why?"

"Because I was afraid I'd spook you by what I really wanted and you'd . . ." He couldn't say it.

"Dump you?"

"Ehhhhhh. I don't know. More like make you pull back from me. That I'd frighten you by wanting more than you do. Or too much different."

She started laughing. "Oh, Patrick . . . so you talked about beekeeping and sailing the ocean, instead? Like that wouldn't scare me? That would put us miles apart in our thinking about how we could be together." Brushing back a few curls from his temple, she gave him a tiny kiss. "And that is utterly frightening. But something in me didn't believe you."

"You're not mad at me?"

"I guess I should confess, too. I don't want to live in the country and go barefoot and make pickles."

"Oh." Maybe that meant she didn't want babies either.

"I just painted that picture to be the furthest from your footloose ideas I could get. I was yanking your chain to see what would shake loose."

"You were manipulating me."

"Errr. Yeah. More like messing with you. Because . . . you see . . . I've always seen what makes you smile. Oranges on a tree after a bad day. Bringing me strawberries. Bear claws. Coffee. Ha ha! Just feeding me. Seeing a deer. A pretty hat on my head. And they're all just the simple things of living life. That's available everywhere, footloose and jetting around the world . . . or barefoot at home."

"Seeing you walk into a room."

"Besides me. There's one thing that lights you up every time."

"What's that?" Hmmmm. What did she know that he didn't know she knew?

"Babies. And children. They make you the happiest, and you can't resist playing with them. You never stop smiling."

Jane smiled then, his eyes dreamy and his gaze far away. "They're so fresh. Everything is new. They love you so easily. And their smiles . . . Lisbon, their smiles . . . make everything new. Even to a haggard, broken man like m-."

"Uh-uh. None of that. You know what? I can give them to you. And you know what else?"

"You're razing me to my shoelaces. You may as well continue." Dreams so deep he didn't know he had them, didn't know their names, bubbled inside and lit his face with joy.

"I want them. I want babies and children—a family. With you. I don't know if that's what you want but if you do, we would have to make a home for them."

Patrick held her arms and leaned her away from his body so that he could see her face. She was smiling broadly, flushed and excited, waiting for him to speak. He couldn't just yet. She saw the unspeakable joy in his face and silently shared it with him.

"There's one thing."

All he could manage was a high-pitched choking sob of an exhale and a shrug for her to go ahead. Teresa obviously had everything thought out. Such an amazing, wonderful woman loved him—_him_.

"I'm not in my twenties . . . maybe I can't get pregnant. If I can't, we could travel and do anything, if you want. Unless you wanted to adopt. We could still leave law enforcement so neither of us would have to be scared of that anymore. What do you think?"

"I don't know!" His words came with tears and great sobs from his chest.

She patted his shoulder as she held him in her arms. "Well, don't say anything now. It's a lot to spring on a man when you've only just told him you love him."

Her smile gave away the tease and he managed to kiss it from her face.


End file.
